Cynthia
I stare at the marks on my back. The new welts are a purplish red, some of them gaping open and bleeding, and I know they will take weeks to heal. But they will never disappear. I gingerly touch them and wince. At least the bleeding has stopped.
One would think I would be used to it by now.
I’ve spent twenty-four years like this, receiving a whipping every Sunday to remind me of my family’s sins. The four-year-old confused and frightened child who had entered this house had cried and begged. She had apologized all the time, trying to make herself invisible. The twenty-eight-year-old woman who is staring back at me in the mirror no longer screams. It doesn't hurt any less. Now, I get a sick satisfaction from seeing the irritation in the eyes of Jonathon Moore, the man who took me
